1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ultrasonic observation apparatus which observes the tissue of a sample using ultrasonic waves, an operation method of the ultrasonic observation apparatus, and a computer readable recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, an ultrasonic elastography technique has been known as a technique for examining breast cancer or the like using ultrasonic waves (for example, see WO 2005/122906). Ultrasonic elastography is a technique using the fact that the hardness of cancer or tumor tissue in vivo varies depending on the progress of a disease or a living body. In this technique, in a state in which an examination site is pressed from the outside, the distortion amount or elastic modulus of a living tissue in the examination site is measured using ultrasonic waves, and the result of the measurement is displayed as a tomographic image.
In the observation using ultrasonic waves, attenuation caused by the transmission of an ultrasonic wave is corrected to perform A/D conversion in an optimum range, and thus Sensitivity Time Control (STC) correction is usually performed on received data (analog signal) for generating a B-mode image to add a higher amplification factor to the received data at a deep position (for example, see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 10-216143).